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Drama Coach

For Oedipus, it was hubris, for Macbeth, ambition. My tragic flaw is that I never get parking tickets.

Sure, years ago I parked ten minutes in a space limited to fifteen, and returned to find a $60 ticket saying my car had been there forty‐five minutes (in fact I had parked twice in the space with a half-hour interlude). I argued my case with the authorities, failed, paid the ticket, and today I cherish no scalding resentment.

Recently, I ran an errand in a neighborhood where parking was at a premium. I found a space several blocks from my destination, and thinking I would need thirty minutes, I put coins in the meter for an hour. But the task took over an hour, so I rushed to my car to avoid the horror of a parking ticket. While irritably crossing a busy intersection, I froze. A car barreled by two feet in front of me.

I’d have been dead as poor Hamlet.

The denouement should be a $100 parking ticket that I paid gladly. But in fact, there was no ticket. There’s just me saying please know your tragic flaw.